Hello, I'm back

Not that I was missed but here I am.
I just have to share the funniest thing I saw last night. We have deer running around our neighborhood. Nothing new but they are fun to see. Well, last night the family was coming home around 9pm and as we were pulling into the neighborhood, I noticed a huge deer in my neighbors front yard. Just a walkin' around like it owed the place. Ryan also noticed another deer just a bit further down crossing the street, not in a cross walk I might add. Anywho, since we were coming from a school concert, I had the video camera. Unfortunately it's new and I had no idea what I was doing. Dear hubby was whispering, rather forcefully, to just "turn it on". This thing is smaller that a wallet and loaded with buttons to push and pull and did I mention it was 9pm and dark outside. So I'm fumbling around with it, and finally get it turned on and start hanging the camera out the window because trying to video through the front window of a car, get a good shot of nothing but you. I was taping everything but the deer. Then they took off around the back of the neighbors house. So we continued pulling into our driveway and the car lights hit something rather large and weird in their backyard. I whisper, rather forcefully, for dear hubby to back up so the lights can hit it again. Here's the funny part, it's a huge deer, a buck with antlers that has a tangle of tree branched stuck in it's antles. I mean it looks like it's carrying a bush by it's antlers. Picture a deer with a boufont hair do, stacked up so high it looks like the hair on the bride of Frankenstein. It was the funniest thing. So now, we start to get out of the car to video it. Elliot, that what we've named it (from the movie Open Season) takes off. Heads into our yard and is now about 5 feet from the car with the headlights blinding it making it come to a standstill looking right at me. Ryan starts freaking out saying "it's going to charge", guess he's seen Are We There Yet too many times. It's a bit hard to be scared of something that looks like that, I was laughing myself silly. We got a small video of it but like I said it was dark and so is the video. Now we look for Elliot every night hoping he's feelings aren't hurt.

Hey Lucy!

Here's Ryan with the Oopa Loopa's at the PIB Chocolate Museum. Kind of looks like a cut and pasted his pic on another pic doesn't it? How old will he be when I ask him to stick his head through one of these things and he thinks it's totally un-cool.

I don't know why, but there is a Chocolate Museum on PIB. It's more or less a store to sell chocolates and ice cream than a museum. Here I am with Lucy and Ethal in the famous scene where they try to work at a chocolate factory on the assembly line and they can't keep up so the start eating the candies. Funny stuff.

Seein' ya!

Here's Kyle on top on Perry's Monument on PIB. If you look close you can seeRob and me in his glasses, cool huh?

What I did on my summer vacation

Here's the fam on a golf cart in Put-In-Bay. It's the only way to see all the island, other than just the bars. Imagine my surprise to see there is more to PIB than that.

We went to a Chocolate Museum, The Perry's Monument, shopped, eat and drank a beer or two. Just Rob and I not the boys!

New Arrival!

"Here she is, Miss American", that's the song I'm hearing when I look at her. She is my sister's new grandbaby - Kayleigh Michelle. I guess that makes me a great aunt, but I was a "great" aunt before. hehehe. She has a head full of jet black hair and looks just like my nephew. FINALLY, a girl to buy pink things for! YEAH!!!

Black Belt Dude

Finally, after 3 broken bones, the first happened on his first day, Ryan has his black belt. It was 3 long years of twice a week classes and he stuck with it. He is taking a little time off, thank God, this is one expensive sport. He wants to take drum and trumpet lessons now. Oh Yeah!

Prom Master

Yup, my little boy got asked to prom, by a Junior. Grandpa says it's those fine blue eyes that will get him into trouble - girls can't resist'em. He was very excited and looked very handsome, IMHO!!
These 12 young people all had to fit into 1 limo, thank God it was a big one. Some did double up. They're all from the band and had a really great time. With all the moms and dads there, the flashes from the cameras almost blinded them. I told them we were the paparazzi. Get used to it!

Kayleigh's bunny

I can't stop knitting tiny things. It's so rewarding to start and finish a project in less than two days. Love love love it.

It's this cute. It's a Bunny Buddy. Hope Kayleigh will love it to pieces, then I can make a new one.

Honestly - I do knit!

I can't believe I haven't posted in over a month. Please forgive me. Not that anyone reads this blog anyway. But it's a good log for myself. I have been busy, enjoying the weather - yahoo! Enjoying the 70s in Ohio. It must be a dream. I have also been knitting. Just finished a little project - this baby bid from One Skein. It's in a lovely purple yarn that will go to my grand-niece due in May. I have discovered I like fast, little projects, instant gratification of a finished project. Right now I am knitting a Bunny Buddy for her. I got the pattern off Ravelry. If you haven't been out to Ravelry yet - be warned it will suck up a lot of knitting time. I have amassed quite a few patterns from that sight. And that's where the bunny came from. Watch for it soon!

Fair Isle?

This is my most recently completed knit project, a skull wrist warmer for Kyle. I think it's Fair Isle but not sure. Also not sure if I did it right but as long as I am consistly wrong, it's right. Right? He hasn't stopped warning it and is trying to talk me into another one. But before I do another one, maybe I should look into what I may, or may not, have done wrong.

Meet Sheldon

It's he the cutest little turtle you've ever seen? I knit this little guy up for Ryan for Valentine's
day and he loves it. It was a little more fiddly than I thought it would be but I learned a few new things and it was fun. He's my first knit toy too. Ryan was surprised to know that I knit this while he was at school and I did a little right in front of him but he wasn't paying attention to whatever mom was doing. hehehe

Smile!

Don't we look happy? We should, we were on a cruise when this was taken. That was before the house selling and buying and Christmas! Why didn't they photo shop out my hips??

Who's cookin' now?

Yup, I hate to admit it but I kind of like cooking. Now I hate the whole go to store, buy ingredients and bring home and find a place to put the stuff until you use it part and I hate the clean up part but the slicing and dicing and creating part I love. And finding recipes to try is the best. The best way to find a good recipe is when I worked, co-workers would bring their leftovers to work and I'd smell it and want the recipe. Tried and true is always the best. My mom was a stay at home mom before there was such a thing. She always cooked, we hardly ever went out. If we did it was for lunch and not a big dinner. Dad worked the night shift so meals where somewhat odd but we had 3 meals a day and we didn't ask "What's for dinner...ewwww" back then either. You ate or went hungry. So that's the way I do it. There are very few exceptions to where I will let my boys make a PB&J sandwich but 99% of the time we eat what I cook. And they eat a wide range of foods too. Some things I eat now I'd never heard of before meeting Rob. My family are/is hill billy and we eat meat and veggies. But now we eat Mexican and Chinese and Italian foods. Where does one get hill billy food? You should have seen my dad's face when we announced where Rob and I were having our rehearsal dinner - the Kahiki. Polynesian food, whoa! I'm pretty sure he hit the McDonalds on the way home. But I digress, what we have here is my first attempt at Cajun Red Beans and Rice. With this recipe I learned what Salt Pork is. Now don't go assuming that because I cook hill billy I ought to know what that is. I know what fat back and a ham hock is but I hadn't heard of Salt Pork. Thank goodness the meat lady at Meijers knew. And it all turned out fine. Probably not as hot as it would be in New Orleans but hot enough for us. We all loved it. The boys especially loved it. Now I gotta add it to my family favorites. Don't ya want smell-a-blog?

What was I thinking??

Friends told me I was crazy but that wasn't news. I've been like that for-ever! Santa brought

the boys an electric guitar and drum set. As the boys are getting older it's getting harder to buy for them at Christmas. Gone are the days when a box of legos would do. And frankly they don't need anymore clothes. So that's my reasoning for saying yes to these instruments of torture. The good thing is they play or shall I say try to play music from my era. Music I can rock to. What I should have done is asked Santa to bring me some Bose noise reducing head phones.

Let's Craft a while

Finally back to blogin' and knitin' and just enjoying the new house. Spent this weekend organizing my craft area. Can't really call it a room, only has 3 sides but it's bigger than the room I used to have. Completely unpacked and only bought two new things to organize onto/into. Bought a 3 drawer plastic things and those shelves you see in the back. It was fun. And now when I need something, I know exactly where it is. If I can keep the boys out of it, that would be a miracle.